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Firefox 42 will not allow unsigned extensions

(wiki.mozilla.org)
288 points fernandotakai | 2 comments | 11 Aug 15 03:51 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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kragen ◴[11 Aug 15 06:17 UTC] No.10039371[source]▶
This is deeply disappointing.

Two details: the extensions need to be signed by Mozilla, and only US English speakers will be allowed to disable this requirement.

The point of free software is that users, individually and collectively, are free to modify it as they wish, without requiring approval from third parties. (And of course to use, copy, and redistribute.) This is a sharp turn away from the free-software ethos that made Firefox possible in the first place.

I understand the issue of users being tricked into downloading and installing malicious extensions. If you let someone program, they will be able to paste malicious code. I just don’t think that taking away users’ ability to modify their own browsers is an acceptable solution to that.

If this disturbing move sticks, Mozilla will become an increasingly tempting target for whatever group wants to control what software you can install on your own computer — whether that’s Sony Pictures, the NSA, or Amazon.

The old free software movement has died. We need a new free software movement.

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dtech ◴[11 Aug 15 07:25 UTC] No.10039538[source]▶
> only US English speakers will be allowed to disable this requirement

Do they assume that non-English speakers are just drooling baboons who cannot decide this for themselves unlike English speakers?...

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kragen ◴[11 Aug 15 07:47 UTC] No.10039595[source]▶
Perhaps they assume that to program enough to write an extension, you need to learn English. I’ve met people here in Argentina who say that. My view is that, even if that is the status quo ante (and I’m not sure it really is) it’s a status quo we must disrupt, not ossify.
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kome ◴[11 Aug 15 09:10 UTC] No.10039802[source]▶
Wise words, kragen. With the excuse "you need english because" a new form of imperialism is on the making. And what is worse, is that this attitude is often self-imposed.
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chronial ◴[11 Aug 15 12:10 UTC] No.10040377[source]▶
I think your are mixing “English, the lingua franca”, with “English, the language spoken in the US”.

Why would using the lingua franca that everyone agrees on be imperialism?

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kome ◴[11 Aug 15 15:15 UTC] No.10041654[source]▶
Because there is no such a thing like “English, the lingua franca”; changing the name do not change the content.

We should stop self-deluding ourselves in believing that English exits in a geopolitical void. English is the language of the anglosphere, and speaking English is a huge favor to those economies, and that comes with a sense of cultural inferiority as well, in many peoples.

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Zancarius ◴[11 Aug 15 17:10 UTC] No.10042671{3}[source]▶
There is a such thing as "English, the lingua franca" no matter how much one tries to will it away.

Aviation is a curious industry. English is commonly spoke between flight crews and ground stations world wide (with few but notable exceptions). Circumstances where the English meaning of a word wasn't well understood by the flight crew or the wrong words were spoken have, on occasion, lead to disaster--Avianca Flight 52 [1] comes to mind, among others.

I simply cannot agree that mutual intelligibility is bad simply on the merit that it somehow creates a "sense of cultural inferiority."

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_52

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1. kragen ◴[11 Aug 15 20:03 UTC] No.10043952{4}[source]▶
It sounds like you're saying that using English as the lingua franca of aviation puts at risk the lives of flight crews for whom English is not a native language, as well as their passengers. This seems like a good example of how English-as-lingua-franca gives special worldwide advantages to native English speakers.
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2. Zancarius ◴[20 Aug 15 00:52 UTC] No.10089471[source]▶
Not at all.

What I'm suggesting is that having a standard for communication is less likely to put lives at risk. I can't help but wonder if you're invoking Poe's Law by advocating from what is arguably an extremely fringe standpoint.

Otherwise, the alternative would be to require air traffic controllers to learn a dozen languages, and then you wind up with an even worse problem than having everyone settle on a single language with codified standards.

Didn't the Browser Wars teach you anything? :)